The faith-based organization will be one of four award winners at the event, who will each be honored for their impacts throughout the city.
Roberto Clemente Middle School shut its doors in 1994 and sat empty for more than 10 years in Philadelphia’s Hunting Park, a predominantly Latino neighborhood. Not anymore. Local faith-based nonprofit Esperanza has turned the former school into 38 affordable housing units, which opened November 2018, Plan Philly reports.
In 2019, the Department of Commerce is celebrating 10 years of the Storefront Improvement Program (SIP), a grant program that offers reimbursements for facade improvements on commercial properties. Follow along this year for more stories of SIP’s impact on Philadelphia businesses and neighborhoods. When Moises and Edith Shienbaum came to the United States from Havana, Cuba…
Edgardo Aponte sleeps most nights in the parking lot of a Kensington Save-A-Lot. When he has money, he’ll share a room with as many as five other men in a nearby rowhouse. He’s been homeless for several years and like most of the people who share the supermarket lot, he’s Latino, originally from Puerto Rico….
La mayoría de la noches Edgardo Aponte duerme en el estacionamiento de un supermercado de Kensington. Cuando le llega el dinero, comparte una habitación con otros cinco en una casa del área. Edgardo ha sido mendigo por varios años y como la mayoría de las personas que pasan la noche en ese supermercado, no tiene…
*Correction: Esperanza is not affiliated with Esperanza Health Center and has not taken any part into the construction of its new campus.* What does asset-based community development look like? While some groups opt to focus on bricks and mortar, as scholars like John “Jody” Kretzmann and John McKnighthave argued for decades, strong asset-based development really comes…
Esperanza, the local nonprofit serving the North Philadelphia neighborhood’s Hispanic community, renovated and officially reopened the former school’s building in November after it sat vacant for more than a decade. Now dubbed the Roberto Clemente Homes, it contains 38 affordable housing units and 5,000 square feet of commercial space. The $18 million project is a marker of the…
By M. Thomas Ridington ’78, MA ’81, PhD The national conversation on poverty identifies place as a powerful determinant for accessing the American dream. A zip code is a key factor in establishing the opportunities available for most people and portends their futures. It’s not surprising then that academic, business and nonprofit leaders are coalescing around mobility as a…
2018 was a great year for Esperanza and its fight to protect and enhance Hunting Park’s environment. In April, we hosted the first-ever bilingual (English/Spanish) PHS Tree Tenders training with the participation of 45 people, mostly community residents. This year alone, we planted 54 street trees and plan to plant many more in years to…
Esperanza’s Housing and Economic Development division received a scale-tipping $450,000 renewal grant from Wells Fargo last week. The money will help support resident-driven community development projects and initiatives in Hunting Park, in addition to beautifying the North Philadelphia area. The grant builds on previous 2012 funding and will help Esperanza complete its Hunting Park 2022…
